


Crucial Velocity

by sanidine



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Mild Gore, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 11:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9437483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanidine/pseuds/sanidine
Summary: Bayley, Charlotte, and Becky go for a drive





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobinTrigue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinTrigue/gifts).



> For Robin, who loves kickass ladies and always tells me that I do good action scenes. 
> 
> I just wanted to write a car chase but it ended up kinda getting away from me. Whoops! We are dealing with Action Movie Logic here, don't worry about it too much!

The highway in the heat of the day was like a long black river, shimmering where it disappeared out over the distant horizon. From the low mountains far to the west and the endless flatlands to the east, the only clouds in the deep cerulean sky were a few long streaks of white. Jet engine contrails, or maybe a couple highflyers taking advantage of the beautiful afternoon.

Really, they wouldn't have even needed a reason to take out Charlotte’s dad’s old boat of a Cadillac convertible. But as they had been planning, it had been decided to make a road trip out if it. They stopped at the last gas station before the scrubby high desert. Bayley had picked up some bags of ice for the cooler, snacks and sodas, three identical pairs of cheap red plastic sunglasses, paying in cash while Charlotte had gassed up the car and Becky wandered around until she found a good rock at the edge of the parking lot. Becky was always doing that.

Pale brown and jagged on the edges, the rock now rode on the dashboard within reach of where Becky was behind the steering wheel. They had put the top down on the convertible after leaving the gas station so that they could feel the wind in their hair, Charlotte was riding shotgun with her flip flops up on the dash, Bayley in the back seat next to the cooler, leaned out the side so she could put out her hand and let it ride up and down on the wave of the passing air currents.

It was a baking hot day but between the free flowing air and the cold drinks it really wasn't too bad at all. Tank tops and shorts and no cell phone signal for miles. The radio was tuned to the only station that they could get out in the middle of nowhere, blasting the chart topping hit of the summer. Some pop banger about going surfing for the first time after the Comet and finding out that you could talk to fish and also that the girl you liked from school could turn into a shark now? It was a little confusing - music, along with everything else, had gotten pretty weird in the last few years - but it was also catchy as hell. At least most people thought so.

“I didn't think it was possible.” Charlotte said, stretching her arms up above her head “But I actually miss Justin Bieber. Can we play something that doesn't blow rats?”

“I heard they might start letting him out under government custody soon!” Bayley offered. She could see the price tag still looped through Charlotte's sunglasses, fluttering back and forth. “They brought in a certified scanner to show he didn’t mean to command all those people.”

“Hmph.” Charlotte, unimpressed, reached out for the radio dial only to have her hand slapped away by Becky.

“Driver picks the music!” Becky said, as if there was a choice - they were all doing their best to act normal, and it was getting a little weird. Becky's hands twitched on the wheel as she checked the mirrors . “Here comes a van.”

“You think this is the right one?”

“Right on time if so…”

None of them were obvious enough that they turned around to look, but Bayley could tell that they were all watching the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the white van that was in the process of catching up to them. Becky had been driving under the speed limit for over an hour. There wasn't much traffic out in the middle of nowhere, but what cars there were had passed them in the left lane without hesitation.  But this van didn't follow the pattern, stayed a good following distance behind them for miles and miles and Bayley met Charlotte’s eye in the mirror, sunglasses slipped down on the bridge of her nose.

The only people going the speed limit on this road had to be up to something.

“Slow it down a little more, Becks. Let's see if they’ll pass.”

Sure enough, as soon as Becky tapped the brakes to knock off the cruise control and the convertible started slowing down, the van didn't adjust it's speed at all until it was right on their tail. Bayley turned around to wave, and though she couldn't make out many details about the hulking driver, she clearly saw it when the guy in the passenger seat stuck his tongue out at her. It was forked, flickering.

“This is them.” Bayley said, grinning, as she dug around in the cooler. Water and ice halfway up to her elbow, so cold that it hurt, but then she found the can she was looking for. After double checking the red warning label to make sure she had the right one - it wouldn't do to open Enzo’s gate just yet - Bayley asked “You want a pop, Charlotte?”

“Yeah, let's do this.”

The cargo van didn't gun it, exactly, but Bayley heard the engine kick up a gear as it shifted to pass around them. There wasn't any oncoming traffic. The world was empty around them in all directions. Bayley tilted her head to watch the van, the faded words on the side that advertised BUSY BEE TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS. Bayley thought the little bee logo was cute, even of the small window on the side of the cargo van was tinted dark enough that it looked black. Maybe it was just to help keep whatever they were transporting from getting too hot cool. Or maybe it was because they had something to hide.

Right when the hood of the van was even with the front of the Cadillac, Charlotte twisted the dripping can that Bayley had handed to her. It rotated half way, something clicked, and then there was a high beeping as Becky said

“Don't miss.”

There would be no going back from this. The Authority would know what all of them looked like, not just Sasha, faces and identities to match the Four Horsewomen . But they would get her back. And that was the most important thing.

“Don't worry.” Charlotte unclipped her seatbelt, pushing herself up straighter in her seat as the beeping got faster and faster. Becky stomped on the gas and the engine roared as they shot back ahead of the van.

Bayley could see Charlotte counting under her breath as she got one leg under her on the seat, twisted around to look at the van, and lobbed the can in a perfect overhead arc. Bayley turned around to watch and Charlotte kept her eye on the shining silver can as it bounced off the asphalt, coming to a rest the second before the van passed over it.

Then the can exploded.

Becky had still been accelerating, so they were far enough out of range to be safe when the red and orange flames bloomed out from beneath the undercarriage, even though the concussion blast still rattled Bayley’s teeth a little. Bayley saw the van tilt and rise a little bit as the back tires left the ground for a split second. The tire rubber hadn't melted and at first glance there didn't seem to be any serious structural damage, so the intel about the aftermarket reinforcements had probably been correct.

The van had continued moving forward, maybe even picking up a little speed with the push from the explosion, until it touched back down. It must have landed crooked or maybe the driver had yanked the wheel or something, because the big vehicle fishtailed for a second - back end slaloming - before it went into a wild spin.

“Keep ‘em on the road Becky.”

“Gotcha.”

Everyone who didn't know her took one look at Becky and thought that she was some type of pyrokinetic. Probably because of her hair. Bayley didn't think it was very nice to judge people by their appearances like that, but sometimes it came in handy that no one expected her to be an earthrocker.

Bayley had turned back around to watch as Becky reached out and grabbed the rock that had been resting on the dashboard. There was a deep rumbling sound that filled the air before jagged stone cliffs shot up out of the ground, ripping up through the scrub brush along both sides on the highway behind them and keeping pace with the Cadillac, about five feet high. Not a split second later the van bounced and scraped along one of the walls and there was a spray of sparks and shards of rock from where the van's bumper caught and dragged, crumpling metal and a loud squealing noise that drowned out everything else. The van had caught the wall when the rear end of it had been pointing forward, the double doors in the back facing towards the Cadillac, but the vehicle hadn't lost enough momentum to stop completely, still hurtling along behind them as Becky adjusted their speed so as to not get too far ahead.

The tail lights of the van flashed and then the front end of the thing whipped back around, tires squealing on the pavement, and it shot forward. Heading right at them, gears grinding. The logo and the paint on the side of it had been worn off down to the metal from where it had scraped along Becky's walls, the windshield spiderwebbed with cracks. But Bayley could see even through the ruined safety glass that the huge guy behind the wheel now had flames pouring out of his eyes.

Bayley hadn't been able to get a great look at him before, but there was no denying now that it was Kane in the driver's seat. Charlotte and Becky and Bayley had gathered as much information on the Authority as they could, once it had become clear that this was the only way, so at least they had some idea of who these guys were and what these guys could do. In the passenger seat, Randy Orton was in the process of slamming a clip into a stunted, ugly-looking machine gun, mouth moving as he said something to Kane.

The van was almost even with them again now. Randy was turning, swinging the barrel of the gun around to bear on them, and Bayley could see his fangs dripping as he grinned. Becky kept their speed steady, kept the car as straight and stable as she could, so that Charlotte could move with confidence as she sprang up out of her seat.

Charlotte had kicked her flip flops off, but the tag was still fluttering on the silly sunglasses as she planted one foot on the seat of her chair, the other on the top of the backrest. In a flash she had stepped across behind Becky as well, crouched and sprang, leaping through the air and landing with a thud on the roof of the van. Right above where Orton ducked down in the passenger seat. Bayley could see that the metal had crumpled a tiny bit from Charlotte’s impact in the split second before Orton swung the muzzle up as started shooting up through the roof.

The van and the convertible were still keeping pace with each other, so Bayley could hear the _rat-a-tat_ as Orton fired, see his snarling face highlighted in the little beams of light that shone down through the holes. He probably would've got blood all over himself if he had actually managed to hit anything, but Charlotte had been out of the way as soon as she had landed. With Orton still shooting up at nothing Charlotte swung down around his side of the van, knees drawn up to her chest before she kicked out the passenger window and went barreling through.

Bayley didn't have any enhanced perception, but she still saw what happened next in perfect, hilarious freeze frames. Charlotte kicked into Orton, catching him by surprise, knocking the gun out of his hands, and - since Orton hadn't bothered to buckle up - the force of the impact sent both of them sliding across the bench seat and into Kane. Kane slammed up against his own window, not hard enough to knock him out or break the glass, but enough to startle him into jerking the wheel and send the van careening into the rock walls again.

The van dropped back, losing speed as the front compartment dissolved into chaos. Again, Becky made sure that the Cadillac didn't get too far ahead, easing off the gas, still keeping concentration on maintaining the rock walls on either side of them, springing up about fifty feet beyond the nose of the Cadillac and slamming back into the ground once they had been left behind. Bayley thought that Becky was doing a really great job managing both the rocks and the driving, but now wasn't the time for congratulatory hugs. They could do that later, once this whole mess was wrapped up and they were back together again.

Bayley tightened her shoelaces before she turned around fully so that she was facing backwards towards the van. She still couldn't see what was happening in the cab of the van, but it seemed to have stopped swerving and was gaining speed again. As the other approached Bayley stood up slow and careful, shifted her weight on the balls of her feet to make sure that she had stable footing on the wide leather seat. The ice and the cans were sloshing around in the cooler next to her and Bayley leaned over to dunk her hands in the frigid water, sticking her hair back and up into a ponytail and tossing off her sunglasses.

Then, ready to go, Bayley stepped up onto where the convertible top had folded down, hands held out to her sides as she crouched down. Balancing on the trunk of a car that was doing at least seventy down the highway might not have been the best place to concentrate, but Bayley took a deep breath and let everything else fall away. Bright and radiant energy in hummingbird colors - purple and blue and green - swirled around her arms and coalesced into feathery looking gauntlets that radiated outwards from the palms of her hands.

The van was much closer now than it had been before, almost close enough to jump to, but before Bayley could take the leap the already ruined saftey glass of the windshield exploded out towards her in a hail of little shards that surrounded Orton like a cloud as he bounced off the lid of the trunk and crashed into the backseat. Bayley barely had enough time to scramble and avoid him, but when Orton slammed into the back of the driver's seat he knocked Becky forward into the wheel.

Bayley swung her arms around, not to fold anything but simply to keep her balance as the Cadillac jerked and swerved wildly. For one second the rock walls on the sides of the road crumpled back down into the earth and it was only then that Bayley realized just how much noise the rumble of the ground had been making. Bayley felt herself teetering then, the grippy soles of her shoes not quite enough to compensate for the fact that she wasn't able to grab anything, and in that almost silent moment she thought that she was going to go crashing into the pavement without getting to say goodbye.

Then Becky must have grabbed her rock again because the cliffs came roaring back up in the same moment that Charlotte launched herself out through the gaping hole where the windshield of the van had been. The gout of flame that followed her went wild, blackening the back corner or the car but not close to burning Charlotte as she landed heavy on the trunk of the Cadillac. Charlotte dropped to a knee and grabbed Bayley by one of her belt loops, yanking her back to balance, careful to avoid the swirling colors on Bayley’s arms. Bayley saw that Charlotte looked a little singed around the edges, had a couple deep gouges on her shoulder, but it looked like her durability had protected her from the worst of it.

Bayley felt the air around her go harder, drier all of a sudden, even more so than it usually was out in the high desert country. She caught Charlotte's eye and they both had to duck as another jet of flame shot towards them, a split second of crouching and covering where Bayley offered

“Do you want me to fold the snake man?” Bayley didn't like folding living things, but she would if she had to. If her friends needed her to.

“Nah, I got him handled.”

There wasn't time for anything else though, because as soon as the fire blast abated Orton popped up in the backseat and Charlotte had to tackle him back down, one of her hands wrapped around the cords of his neck as he tried to rear back and bite. Those fangs were dripping with something that Bayley was fairly sure she didn't want to get on her, but Charlotte didn't seem to think twice about it before she headbutted Orton right in the face.

Bayley couldn't stick around to see what happened next though, because suddenly the twisted front bumper of the van rammed into the tail of the car. When she looked up, Kane’s fiery eyes locked with hers, going wider in shock when she sprung off the trunk of the Cadillac and onto the hood of the van. Her angle was right and she got a good grip with her shoes and she kept moving as soon as she landed. Right foot on the hood, stepping forward so the arch of her left foot was across the jagged lip where the windshield had been, kicking little pieces of glass in at Kane. The air around her went hard and dry and Bayley sprang up and onto the roof of the vehicle, landing on her knees in the dent that Charlotte had originally made as she heard the whooshing sound of the fire blast that had been meant for her shooting out into thin air.

The van swerved then as Kane tried to shake her off, but Bayley got to her feet and took two more steps back toward the rear before she had to go down on her knees again. She figured that she was far enough back now to drop down into the cargo compartment instead of right behind Kane, and if not… oh well. She was just going to have to make it work.

Body swaying with the movement of the lumbering vehicle, wind whipping all around her, Bayley reached out and slapped her hands flat against the hot metal roof. The vivid green that had been swirling around her hands misted out the moment that she made contact. It seemed to sink down into the metal as it dissipated. The van was still jerking back and forth and Bayley could hear the commotion of the fight behind her back, but that wasn't her part anymore. Now she needed to _fold_.

A swarm of empty little fractal spaces, infinitely complex and never-ending, bloomed from under Bayley’s touch, radiating outward. Like a thousand tiny perfect pieces of origami, the thick metal started to peel away in layers as it folded back onto itself and out of existence.

The roof was thick. If the entire van was built like this then it was no wonder that the grenade had so little effect. It was shocking that this thing could even go as fast as it was, just the roof thick enough that it would have taken hours to cut through it with a torch. But lucky for them, Bayley didn't need a torch. Bayley had learned through trial and error that her ability was more conceptual than logical. If she touched a building the entire thing would fold, even if she had only actually contacted one part of it. So the entire body of the van would fold away eventually, but it was thick enough that it would take a while, giving Bayley time to do what she needed.

As soon as the hole was wide enough to fit through, Bayley dropped down through the roof to land, crouched, in the cargo compartment of the van. There was enough light slanting down through the folded-open roof that she was able to see clearly right away without waiting for her eyes to adjust. No extra guards, no traps - there were low steel benches along both sides, but otherwise the van was empty except for Sasha.

Sasha had been restrained using some sort of complicated setup of wide white nylon straps, held down cross legged on the floor of the van with her back and head resting against the wall that divided the cargo area from the driver. She was frozen, comatose, her eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth parted slightly as she stared straight in front of herself, unseeing.

All of a sudden the van rocked violently on its shocks, and as Bayley caught her balance she heard what sounded like yelling, a flamethrower, rocks cracking. But Bayley couldn't worry about any of that right now.

“Hey Sasha.” Bayley said, voice gentle and low as she stepped closer. “You knew we were gonna come for you, right babe?”

The left side of Sasha’s head had been shaved down to the skin. Bayley though Sasha might not have minded that part too much - undercuts were a good look on everybody - but Sasha definitely wouldn't have been happy with the burnished steel device that had somehow been secured to her scalp. That was. Unexpected.

The plate wasn't that much bigger than the palm of Bayley’s hand, about a centimeter thick. It was smooth and featureless except for the coiled black cord that came out of the edge of it, draped over Sasha’s shoulder and trailed across the floor of the van until it disappeared into a big black plastic Pelican case that Bayley hadn't noticed before, tightly strapped to floor of the van underneath one of the benches. Good thing the case had been so well secured or else it might have bounced around all over the place when the van had spun out of control. Not that Bayley knew if bouncing was a good or a bad thing for the whatever was in there, but it could have slammed into Sasha and hurt her.

Bayley had no idea what the headpiece with the cable or the case were for, except it seemed pretty obvious that this was the thing they were using to keep Sasha out of commission. As much as she would have liked to, Bayley couldn't stick around to find the owner's manual - the van was getting increasingly wild in it's handling. Bayley knew that Becky would wear out soon, and even Charlotte got tired eventually. Bayley just needed to get whatever this thing was out of Sasha’s head, and the only plan that she could come up with was to fold it away.

This time it was the blue light that left Bayley’s hands when she touched two careful fingers to the device on Sasha’s head, making sure not to accidentally touch her friend on the skin. Bayley hadn't yet encountered a material that could resist being folded except for her own body. She had done steel plenty of times before, and her first clue that the plate was made of something else was that it didn't immediately begin to fold. In fact it seemed to _shimmer_ for a second, almost as if it were fighting back, and Bayley had one blood chilling moment of doubt.

Rumor had it that one of the McMahons had some tinkertype ability, real hush hush stuff that no one knew much about. Bayley knew from working with Enzo that the things tinkers came up with could be difficult to handle, even when you knew what you were dealing with. But in this case Bayley had no idea. Maybe Bayley couldn't fold whatever that plate was, maybe Sasha was going to be stuck with - then the first piece of the thing folded away.

Then another tiny segment of the plate disappeared, and another. Slower than usual, but still folding.

Bayley sighed in relief. Whatever it was would fold out of the world like anything else, out of Sasha’s head without leaving a single trace behind. All that was left for Bayley to do was hope that Sasha would be alright after it was gone and cover for her until Sasha had recovered enough to move.

Within the thick walls of the van Bayley was mostly insulated from whatever was going on outside of the cargo compartment, but she could still tell that the ride was getting rougher. She kept her body as loose as possible, trying to bob and sway with the jerky movements. Underneath her feet, Bayley could feel the van accelerate suddenly, slam the brakes, weave from side to side, and the walls of the vehicle were thick enough that they didn't crumple but she could still hear the screeching as the body of the van scraped along one of Becky's rock walls. Must have been trying to get around the Cadillac, then, but Becky was keeping them stuck in the lane.

The hole in the roof was bigger than when she had dropped through it, still folding outwards, but Bayley couldn't see anything out of it when she looked up except for that endless blue sky, streaked with white. And even from the inside the windows were so darkly tinted that trying to see out of them was useless, so. Bayley just had to trust that her friends had it handled.

When Bayley leaned back down to check she saw that the plate on the side of Sasha’s scalp had folded away completely but there were two tiny little holes, no bigger than pinpricks, in the side of her head. But before Bayley could get too worried about it she saw Sasha’s eyes flutter shut, body relaxing as if it had been held taut by some current that had finally been shut off.

“Sasha? Can you hear me?” Bayley wished that she could push Sasha’s hair back out of her eyes or hug her or something, anything, to be a comfort as Sasha regained consciousness, but she couldn't.  Not unless she released that last purple charge, and Bayley wasn't about to do that just yet.

“Nngghhhhh.” Sasha groaned, yawning wide before her eyes cracked open “Bay?”

Bayley couldn't resist doing a celebratory fist pump. It was okay. Sasha was awake and this was all going to end up okay. The van was decreasing speed, not slamming the brakes but not accelerating either, starting to coast to slow down. Bayley decided to assume that it was a good thing, that maybe Becky had knocked out Kane and Charlotte had taken control.

“Yeah, hey, Sasha, we're here.” Bayley said, grinning. “You just hold tight, I've got one more charge so I'm gonna get you out of those -”

_Straps_ , was what Bayley had meant to say. But then in the next split second Bayley felt like all of the air had been drawn out of her lungs, and Sasha’s eyes shot open wide in alarm.

It gave Bayley enough warning to crouch down and brace herself. Then the van slammed on the brakes, decelerating suddenly in the hair-thin moment before something slammed through the back half of the vehicle and ripped it wide open. The force of it sent Bayley flying into one of the walls, bouncing off her shoulder and curled around her hands to stop from wasting her last fold as she crumpled down.

Bayley was dazed and blinking when she hit the floor, ears ringing from the screech of twisting metal, not able to understand what had just happened.

The back of van had been torn apart. The floor and the wheelbase seemed to be mostly intact but the two double doors that had been at the rear end were just _gone_ , as were huge chunks of the walls and ceiling. The edges of the metal were still glowing faintly, releasing heat from the friction of being torn and deformed.

And it was a good thing that the van had been slowing down before, because now it was spinning in tight circles again. The world outside of the jagged hole was a rotating blur of blue sky and brown rock and black asphalt. The momentum of the spin kept Bayley from being able to get up and she was sliding, oh no, and she couldn’t grab anything to stop herself and she there wasn't anything for her to hook her foot on and she couldn't stop the slide until the van finally slammed sideways into something in the middle of a spin. Then Bayley wasn’t sliding anymore. She was flying.

As Bayley was thrown out of the open mouth at the back of the van she saw Sasha’s wide eyes lock onto hers for a brief instant. The van was still moving away from Bayley, headed straight for a ragged rock outcrop that had sprung up in the middle of the road, but Sasha was still wrapped up in those straps, restrained, safe from being flung in the collision.

Unlike Bayley.

The moment that she spent flying through the air didn't feel like slow motion at all. Two second seemed to just snap by, there and gone. Bayley had just enough time to make sure that her hands, still glowing purple, were still tucked up to her chest so that if she lived she wouldn't waste her last charge by accidentally touching, say, the asphalt and starting an irreversible fold of the entire highway. Bayley closed her eyes and then there was the sound of crashing metal roaring in her ears and then she hit the ground.

It hurt worse than anything else ever had.  She smacked into the asphalt and slid, road rashing everywhere, a sickening crunch followed by her left arm going completely numb. When she stopped tumbling she wasn’t even on the highway anymore, crumpled instead in the gravel of the shoulder.  Bayley’s rib cage was screaming, breathing shallow and fast and yeah one of her lungs was almost certainly collapsed, every breath she took a whistling agony as she tried to get enough air into her brain to figure out what to do.

She thought distantly for a second that she hoped Big Cass would be able to fix her up alright if they got out of this, but only the second part of that thought was important thing right now. Getting out of this. Because she could hear the blood rushing in her ears, feel it trickling down her face, but Bayley knew she needed to make sure Sasha got free, needed to get to Charlotte and Becky.

She curled her legs, tried to push herself up to stand, but she stumbled and fell back to her knees. Her head was spinning, and the adrenaline had blocked a lot of the pain but not all of it and Bayley tried to breathe through it and get her head together. From where she was kneeling on the side of the road Bayley could see the ruined end of the van pointing in her direction, but crooked enough so that Bayley couldn't look inside and see if Sasha was okay. The hood of the vehicle had crumpled almost flat where the rock wall must have been moments before, but now the rocks were gone. Further up the road, right where Bayley’s vision started to blur out, she could see the Cadillac and a fuzzy blonde figure sprinting in her direction.

But before Bayley could call out to Charlotte she got that weird feeling again. Like all the air had been sucked out of the world around her. Then in the next second the road in front of Bayley shattered, the asphalt split in a series of concentric circles that started in the middle of the highway and kicked up a cloud of dust as they radiated outward, as if the road had been smashed with a holy sledgehammer.

Bayley remembered, then, looking up at the long lines of the white contrails in the sky and not being worried too much because the lack of cell and radio signal. That was one of the main reasons that they had chosen to do the rescue so far from everything. Why it had never occurred to them that the Authority might have some alternative method to call in their heavy hitter air support?

She looked up slowly as the man who had landed on the highway walked towards her, confident steps that didn’t falter on the rubble that had mere moments ago been smooth pavement. Bayley had known about Orton and Kane and she knew this guy too,  everyone did, he was the public face of the Authority. But HHH’s very public visage was currently looking a little bizarre with the beard only on the left side of his face. Like he had been interrupted right in the middle of shaving, hadn’t been expecting to get called out.

At least they had taken him by surprise.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” HHH was closer to her now, not close enough to touch yet but close enough so that she could hear the disappointed tone in his voice. “The Authority always has room for promising young people such as yourselves. It’s not too late to come in peacefully.”

If Bayley’s vision wouldn’t have been going black around the edges from the pain that she was in, she might have rolled her eyes. When you were powerful enough to attract their attention you could either go in peacefully or, if you refused, they could just snatch you off the street. It took all of Bayley’s energy to put her right hand on the shredded skin of her knee and push herself up to stand, left arm still dangling uselessly. In the bright midday sun the purple around her hands was barely visible at all.

“What -” Bayley dissolved into coughing, light headed as she sprayed fine droplets of blood until she could get herself under control. But maybe she let it go on a couple seconds longer than strictly necessary. Bayley didn't know where Charlotte had gone after HHH had landed or if Becky was okay or if anyone was helping Sasha, didn't know if Kane or Orton were still prowling around, but she could at least keep HHH’s attention occupied. “What do you mean?”

“I understand you being upset about your friend. But you have to know, it’s in all of our best interests to keep controllers like her contained. Come, now -” he held out his hand “Once we get you patched up we can talk about contracts. Compensation dependant on what you can do, of course.”

Oh. That was...

Bayley’s mind raced. HHH had called Sahsa their friend, so he had to know they were the remaining Horsewomen. But maybe he didn't know who could do what.  They had always been pretty good at keeping their identities hidden. Surely HHH wouldn't have confused Bayley for Charlotte - who could have been thrown from the vehicle and walked away with only a few scrapes - but maybe he thought that Bayley was the earthrocker. Or maybe he knew who she was, what she could do, and just didn't think that she was a threat to him.

That was good. It would be easier that way. Because Bayley didn’t like to fold living things. It was a little too gruesome for her tastes, but. She would if she had to.

Bayley looked up at HHH and she smiled her sweetest smile as she reached out to take his hand. Every part of her body was agony, and it must have shown on her face because HHH’s eyes flickered with something nasty and condescending as he took another step and reached forward, only an inch away from making contact with Bayley when he froze, his suddenly glowing with a pale pink aura as his eyes glazed over bright fuschia.

Bayley stilled her hand at the last second, and when she looked around the bulk of HHH’s frozen body she saw Sasha standing in the gaping maw of metal that had been the back of the van. Sasha looked a little unstable on her feet. But the hot pink shine in her own eyes was bright and stable, what remained of her hair floating out around her head in three-quarters of a halo.

The Boss was back.

Charlotte was standing on the pavement next to the twisted without an unconscious Becky slung over her shoulders in a fireman's carry. One hand was reached up, helping Sasha stay steady as she climbed down to the asphalt, but the other was gripping something tight. Bayley couldn't be sure with all the sweat and blood blurring her vision but she thought that it was probably the gate grenade that Enzo had given them.

Bayley wanted to run to them, to jump and shout with joy, but she couldn't. The best Bayley could manage was a rough hobble, limping around the immobile HHH. For one brief second Bayley considered reaching out and touching him, folding him even though Sasha had control and he wasn't a threat anymore, but she resisted.

When the others saw Bayley coming they met her in the middle of the crater made by HHH’s landing.

“You can drop that.” Sasha said, tilted her head towards Bayley’s hands. Her voice always had a weird tinny echo to it when she was in the zone. Bayley had missed it, a lot, but -

“Are you sure? The other ones are…”

“I had Orton knocked out before Becky wore down.” Charlotte supplied, patting Becky on her limp leg.

“And the other one got pinned in the crash. But he was awake when I took him. He'll live.” said Sasha.

Bayley had not been worried, so much, about whether they would live. But that was still good. As long as Sasha had them they wouldn't be doing anything that she didn't want anyways. Bayley dropped the last charge from her hands and threw her one working arm around Sasha’s shoulder, burying her face in her neck and smearing blood all over Sasha’s side but not really caring. There was a faint _whup-whup-whup_ noise in the distance, getting closer, and if Bayley would have been able to pick her head up she was sure that she would have seen black helicopters cutting towards them over the horizon.

But Bayley couldn't pick up her head. It was all that she could do just to keep her eyes open. She couldn't feel her arm and she couldn't breathe in anything other than shallow gasps and she couldn't have ridden the adrenaline rush forever so this was as good a time as any to pass out. Now that they had Sasha back everything was going to be okay.

Bayley tried to hug Sasha tighter, but her good arm barely twitched. Then Bayley felt the edge of Sasha’s control slide into her for a second and everything that she saw was pink, then white, then normal again but still smeared and fading to black around the edges.

“Is she gonna be alright?” Charlotte asked from somewhere far away.

“Can we get her to Cass?” Sasha’s arm went tighter around Bayley’s waist to keep her upright as she started to fade out.

“Fuck. Yeah, let's go.”

Charlotte must have pulled the pin then, because one of Enzo’s gates ripping open out of thin air. Bayley clung to consciousness, determined to hang on, as it came into focus - a white light in the shape of a doorway, even brighter than the hot desert sun above them. Then the four of them went through together and left the ruined highway far behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I am deeply thrilled by every one of your comments and kudos! As always I write and edit everything on my phone. It kept trying to change "Sasha" to "Salsa", so please let me know if I've made any other terrible mistakes. 
> 
> [tumblr ](http://www.bingitoff.Tumblr.com)


End file.
